Monday, March 22, 2010

The Election of 1937 (contd-1)

The Congress refused to come to an arrangement with Muslim League, choosing instead Jamiat-e-Ulema-Hind for partnership through Azad. This was a death blow to the league and its leadership who were at this point decidedly pro-congress. On 22 Dec 1939, League and its allies the Scheduled Caste Federation and Justice party of the Tamil Nadu, celebrated the day of deliverance from Congress rule.
Nehru-Jinnah correspondence is specially vital in this regard Nehru had mocked the League as an elitist organisation and asked Jinnah to depend on the League's inherent strength . Jinnah had responded in kind informing Nehru that from now on he would only depend on his inherent strength . As a historian rightly observed :
More than Iqbal, it was Nehru who charted a new mass strategy for the League , prodding and challenging Jinnah to leave the drawing rooms of politics to reach down to the hundred million Muslims. There was of course only one possible way for the league to stir that mass , to awaken it and have it to march behind Muslim leadership.
The League leadership had realized through experience with Congress , that in order to make good on its claim of representation of South-Asian Muslims , it would need to rally the Muslims majority areas behind it. In order to do that it required a slogan which would be vague enough to bring an overwhelming mass of the Muslim majority areas behind the League. Jinnah started by luring the regional politicians into its fold. First came Sikandar Hayat of Punjab , and soon to follow him was Fazlul Haq of Bengal. Soon the regional parties who had defeated the league in the elections were ready to come under the league's banner.